Liner notes
TL note: This section is a translation of the freely available Fanbox post describing this album's concept.
This is a chat about the concept and production of the album “Higan no Arcadia”, the new release for M3-43 in Spring 2019. Like the last album concept posts, this is definitely not the “correct” interpretation of the album! Really, if I had to say, I myself am more of a “the listener's interpretation is that song's interpretation” kind of person. So I would be glad if you would take the details presented here loosely!
Higan no Arcadia
XFD on YouTube
This is the release that came out half a year after Piano Collection 2. I started working on it concurrently with the production of PC2, and really, I would more consider it the new release that was produced in the year after the release of Rebellion of the Birds.
“Rebellion of the Birds” was an omnibus album where I wrote about 13 girls, with one song for each girl's story. This time, as a response to that, I wanted to create an album that consists of one story throughout. With this thought, I started producing the album.
Thus, the stories from track 01 to track 08 are all connected. I say “story”, but I wouldn't call it “story” in the sense of a “tale” or a “narrative”. It's like fragmented scenes and emotions, merely arranged in chronological order. I will write about each of the songs' details in their respective liner notes!
Motifs and the whole story
The first album I released is called “Dark Green Eden”; it has the story of Genesis as its motif. (“Motif” is what I would call it, or perhaps “something that I used as a reference”)
At first when I started working on Dark Green Eden, there were also the parallel world lines of a Utopia-like paradise (5th album, “Garden of Vacancy”) and an Arcadia-like paradise (this album, “Arcadia of Higan”), respectively. The idea that I had in mind was that of two people (similar to Adam and Eve in the story of Genesis) fleeing out of the controlled society of Utopia and out of the (lyrical, pastoral) world of Arcadia — where emotions overflow to the outside — and then meeting in “Eden”.
The Adam who fell into Eden from Utopia, and the Eve who fell into Eden from Arcadia... with such a premise, and following the male vocals of the album “Dark Green Eden” — which I imagined as “green” — as well as following the young boy protagonist of “Garden of Vacancy” (representing the early childhood of the protagonist of “Deep Green Eden”) — which I imagined as “vacant” or “innocent” — and finally, with the title of “... of Arcadia” — which I imagined as “red” — I wanted to release a fantasy album, reliant on female vocals and packed with dark music. Rather than being about the meaning or premise of “Arcadia” itself, I wanted to make the album something that contains elements of an outlook on the world, something that has nuance and shade, something that contrasts with Utopia.
But various things happened, and I ended up not being approached by any female vocalists... so the project was put on hold... but the motif was still there, so in the end I decided to make a new album where I prioritised my own creation process.
And also, there was an original song I created before being active as Metomate, called “Higanbana”, which some people ended up liking, and I myself have always wanted to include it in a Metomate album, if I could. And now there was a perfect match with the colour “red” that I had in mind, so with this opportunity I thought about making it into an album that includes “Higanbana”.
So with this sequence of events, today's “Higan no Arcadia” came to be.
For this album I wanted to write about the changes of interest and the disagreements of selfish hearts, about individual obsessions and the ego, about the absoluteness of one's thought that does not reach one's partner, about all these types of irritation and anguish, and about the two girls who finally reach paradise after all these faults.
Last year I published a song on YouTube called “Mei and Mei” with the subject of two girls both named “Mei”, and its content kind of matches this in some parts. But regarding the characters from “Higan no Arcadia”: rather than humans living within a story, I would just call them elements of the story, and because I feel they are just one manifestation of countless phenomena, the two girls of “Higan no Arcadia” do not have a name.
Cover
Because I wanted to force in some elements beyond these motifs, the album cover has no relation to the motifs and such.
I wanted to use colours that I haven't used in Metomate albums so far, and I had a “red” colour in mind that contrasts with the “dark green” as I wrote above, so the cover image turned out to be coloured like this. And regarding the album name, I named it “Arcadia of Higan”, from the idea that one of the girls has, that no paradise exists other than Higan (nirvana; the world of the dead).
Rejected drafts (rough sketches)
The draft from back when I thought that I was only going to put the black-haired girl on the front, because a lot of the songs are from her perspective. I rejected it because it didn't seem at all rock-like.
Even though I went along with the first draft and decided to draw a rooftop again, there was the danger that my skill would not be enough to draw a powerful background... so I also rejected it... I didn't at all make use of the insight that the first one wasn't that rock-like, there are really too many people that want to draw rooftops...
Changes during the production
Since after “Rebellion of the Birds”, I added various new things. I changed the drum sound to be a bit more heavy and rock-oriented, I bought larger speakers because I wanted to increase the mixing quality, I bought a guitar amplifier and changed the recording process. In addition, I got some new plugins, which changed the sound quality a bit. I remember doing way too much lot of trial and error, working until just before the pressing deadline.
Even though I'm still using all the things I bought at that time today, there will be things like rewritten parts and changes compared to the original sounds and plugins for the liner notes and hi-res releases from this album. Compared to back then, my tastes have changed a bit... sorry...!